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CHRISTOPHER STEVENS Reviews Last Night’s TV: Ms. Durrell Turns Rambo Into An All Inclusive Getaway From Hell
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crossfire
Cunk on Earth
The last time we saw Keeley Hawes on the beach, she was Mama Louisa in pre-war Corfu, fussing over her four children and in love with the village taxi driver at The Durrells.
Crossfire (BBC1) is not The Durrells. Keeley’s character Jo is with her kids by the sea, it’s true, and she has a crush on a cab driver (well, almost… he runs a limousine rental company). But instead of romantic chaos and amateur zoos, she is embroiled in a terrorist attack on a tourist resort.
Corpses pile up by the pool. The secret boyfriend is shot in the chest by a teenage psychopath. Then Jo turns out to be an ex-cop who goes hunting for the murderous fanatics with her shotgun.
Crossfire might as well be called My Family And Other Massacres. It’s a strange and uneasy thriller, an action-adventure that stems from a domestic civil war.
Writer Louise Doughty is best known for Apple Tree Yard, the 2017 political drama with a sordid undertone. Obviously, her instinct is to portray erratic relationships.
When we first see Jo and husband Jason (Lee Ingleby), they seem relaxed and affectionate on vacation in the Canary Islands with two other families.
One minute Jo (pictured) poses as Rambo with a double-barreled weapon, the next she’s wrestling with conflicting emotions over the sexy texts she sent to Chinar
But a drinking meal on the first night ends in a vicious argument, with Jason humiliating his wife in front of their friends, calling her “fundamentally dishonest and cowardly.”
The next morning they are cold but still talk to each other and compete for their children’s attention. Obviously, the quarrel was nothing special to them.
And if that wasn’t enough, we’re quick to recommend that Jo’s beloved Chinar is also on vacation – with his wife Abhi and their three children.
Chinar and Abhi (Vikash Bhai and Anneika Rose) like to pose as Mr and Mrs Perfect. Chinar’s hypocrisy will no doubt be exposed. In addition to the breakfast buffet and water aerobics classes, this all-inclusive hotel may need to offer free marriage counseling.
Information is largely revealed in fragmented flashbacks, often inserted at bizarre moments, as the vacationers evade the terrorists with automatic pistols.
One minute Jo poses as Rambo with a double-barreled weapon, the next she’s wrestling with conflicting emotions over the sexy text messages she sent to Chinar.
Even more shocking is Keeley’s hypocritical voiceover, which provides philosophical commentary on how the smallest choices can have catastrophic consequences. The result: as if Vanessa Redgrave is reading Call The Midwife’s musings over scenes from Mission: Impossible.
Philomena Cunk, the bland presenter played by actress Diane Morgan, specializes in hypocritical voice-overs. Her grandiose, meaningless proclamations, bellowed from mountaintops and glaciers in front of the camera in Cunk On Earth (BBC2), are wickedly funny expressions of a certain kind of TV egotist.
Philomena Cunk, the blank TV host played by actress Diane Morgan, (pictured) specializes in hypocritical voiceovers
When Cunk first appeared on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, some of her interviewees took her stupidity seriously, which made it all the funnier. Now everyone gets the joke, and instead we get the joy of watching Oxbridge historians try to suppress giggles as they answer her magnificently stupid questions.
In this history of human civilization, there is a wonderful cleverness in some of its idiocy. She described the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs as the earliest emojis and pointed out how incompetent humans have become thanks to evolution.
“Early men were trailblazing inventors,” she said. “The first men to use tools, something most men have forgotten today. That’s why they have to bring someone in.’ ouch.